The oldest form of mobile marketing is SMS marketing in which customers receive messages on their mobile phones. With multimedia messaging services now becoming common on almost all new mobile phones it has opened up a world of new marketing opportunities. Despite this the growth of MMS marketing has been relatively slow as most marketers have tended to avoid going down this road. It is likely that in the future this will change but for now there seems to be some doubt as to how to go about advertising to customers using a multimedia platform
The difference between MMS and SMS marketing is that with SMS you are limited to sending text messages. MMS allows you to send not only text but pictures, video and audio. This means that you have a lot more options in what you send to your customers. Currently the most common approach to MMS marketing is to have people send in pictures that they have taken in order to win a prize. While this does work it really isn't't as effective as sending a text message. This is because there is no real follow up when you are marketing this way, it may get your brand known but it doesn't really put your offer in front of the customer. It would be far more effective if MMS marketing where used more like SMS marketing as a way to have regular interaction and to offer something to your customer.
If you are going to get people to give you their phone number in order to receive your messages you are going to have to give them a reason to sign up. Nobody is going to give your their number just so that you can sell them something. The most common approach to getting numbers for SMS marketing is to make a special offer to the people who give you their number. This is usually in the form of a discount. This can work for MMS marketing as well but the multimedia aspect does give you more options. Creativity is important here you want to offer something they can't get in any other way.
Once you have gotten people to sign up to receive your messages you need to actually send them some messages. You can't just send ads, and you can't just send the same special offer over and over again. If you do you will likely find that you have few subscribers left. This is where a lot of mobile marketers go wrong; they assume that once they have the number it is just a matter of sending out the same message over and over again. This rarely works MMS marketing is much more interactive than other forms of advertising. Fortunately the multimedia aspect of MMS marketing gives you lots of options when it comes to sending out messages. A little creativity can go a long way.